Mine and Ours

My wife, Susan, and I were sitting in our back yard late yesterday afternoon, enjoying the sultry breeze under the shade of our ornamental apple tree. I had just finished mowing the lawn. We love sitting out there. It’s very peaceful. We can listen to the children playing in the pool next door, or enjoy the birdsong. Yesterday we relished the sight of a very comfortable bunny that moseyed by, looking right at us, munching and hopping along.

Susan said that that bunny was probably the culprit that had been eating her hollyhocks, one leaf at a time. Now I don’t know a hollyhock from a rhododendron, but the way my mind works I started daydreaming. And my daydreams took me to Thornton Wilder’s play, “Our Town.” We used to have a church players group when I was pastor in Homer. (Homer is more like a New England village than most New England villages. We used to say that Disney couldn’t have done any better at creating one than the folks in Homer did naturally.)

In 1999 we performed “Our Town” in the sanctuary of the Homer Congregational Church. I played Dr. Gibbs. In one scene Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs stood out on the porch after she came home from choir practice to smell the heliotrope and the chat.

"Our Town" is a wonderfully peaceful utterly depressing play. Throughout, the main character, the Stage Manager, takes us through the pastoral lives of the folk from Grover’s Corners. They’re born. They grow up, go to school, play ball and learn to manage a household. Some go off to college, some work on the farm or join the Army. They get married and get a job. Some die before their time. Some last too long.

Yet there’s an undercurrent of dissatisfaction, of downright anger at the unchangeable eventuality of it all. Life is good, but life brings sadness. Life makes us weep. Life makes some people drink too much and others gossip too much. It all seems like the best we can do is go along with what life brings us.

As I was remembering these things about the play, it didn’t take me long to think about what I experience in so many of our churches. General Synod is fast approaching. This year is particularly exciting as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of our founding. There is much to celebrate, and we’ll have a great time. Yet, there is also an abiding undercurrent of unrest. What I keep hearing is the enduring question, “Is my church mine any more?”

I think that this question has been very much in our minds across the UCC since General Synod 25. The Resolution In Support of Equal Rights for Same Gender Marriage caused quite a stir. Several churches left the denomination. Many others stayed but are unhappy. Two Associations from the Indiana-Kentucky Conference each have submitted resolutions to either reverse this resolution or modify it for the purpose of creating more unity within the denomination.

What do you suppose would happen if these resolutions passed? How would those who supported the resolution in 2005 respond/react? They wouldn’t be happy. Would they leave or threaten to leave the denomination? If these current resolutions do not pass, then what? Do we run the risk of losing yet another conference?

John Thomas, General Minister and President of the denomination, wrote in the last edition of UCNEWS that the resolutions submitted for discussion at General Synod seem to be equally divided between concern over our faithfulness and unity as a denominations and our witness to the world. My guess is that the greatest passion (and the majority of news coverage) will be in the debates over our unity as a denomination (sexuality and marriage).

If you haven’t already done so, you can check out the resolutions online at the UCC website. There are also forums for discussion. Finally, there will be gavel to gavel coverage of the Synod plenary sessions online at www.ucc.org.

I tell anyone that wants to listen that in my own view, the genius of the UCC is when we can express our differences of belief and practice faithfully while committing ourselves to staying at the table. That’s when the UCC is mine – when it’s ours. And, when it’s ours, it’s God’s. And, in the end God will have God’s way.

It’s as the Stage Manager said in his concluding speech, “Most everybody’s asleep in Grover’s corners. There are a few lights on: Shorty Hawkins, down at the depot, has just watched the Albany train go by. And at the livery stable somebody’s setting up late and talking. – Yes, it’s clearing up. There are the stars – doing their old, old criss-cross in the skies. Scholars haven’t settled the matter yet, but they seem to think there are no living beings up there. Just chalk—or fire. Only this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself. The strain’s so great that every sixteen hours everybody lies down and gets a rest. Hm—Eleven o’clock in Grover’s Corners. Everybody’s resting in Grover’s Corners. Tomorrow’s going to be another day. You get a good rest too. Good night.”

Blessings,

Rick Cowles